nd here the Reverend Allan
Delcher had lain three days and two nights captive of a madman, with no
food and without one drop of water.

From the other side of the log partition his captor had declared himself
to be the keeper of hell. Even now he could hear the words maundered
through the chinks: "Never got another drop of water for a million years
and still more, and him a burning up and a roasting up, and his tongue
a lolling out, all of a sizzle. Now wasn't that fine--because folks said
he'd likely gone crazy about religion!"

Other times his captor would declare himself to be John the Baptist
making straight the paths in the wilderness. Again he would quote passages
of scripture, some of them hideous mockeries to the tortured prisoner,
some strangely soothing and suggestive.

But a search had been made for the missing man and, quite by accident,
they had found him, at a time when it seemed to him his mind must go with
his captor's. His recovery from the physical blight of this capt